Sam Lawrence: Twitter: A two-way social computer?
April 10 2008
A month into Twitter, it has been a fascinating model of online networking for me. The simplicity of thinking in 140 character bites is a good minimalist challenge, while the pervasive availability of the Twitter stream (web, IM, e-mail, txt message, Notes plug-in, and Blackberry) makes it really addictive. A few of my observations as my use evolves:
- Direct tweets are weird. Don't I have 20 other ways to get to the same people? Yet I find myself using them as a reply method here and there...not sure I would ever initiate contact through one.
- There are some fascinating secondary stream uses of Twitter. I mentioned the Jewish holiday Passover yesterday in a tweet...and found myself followed by @JewishTweets. Someone chose to follow me through Twubble, and instantly, @Twubble was following me. @SeatGuru is following me, I'm not sure how they even considered that I would be worth following. These streams introduce new content sources and voices to my stream.
- The potential for overload, loss of signal to noise ratio, or distraction is very high. The discussions in the Twitter stream are fascinating... I am not yet sure if they are helping me professionally or just further institutionalizing ADHD.
- I see a lot of Twitter content that really belongs inside a company firewall. Sometimes, Twitter users seem to forget that it is a broadcast communications tool, and that their now-even-more-unvarnished thoughts are out there for all to see.
Sam Lawrence, the CMO of Jive Software, is a huge Twitter user. Today on his blog, he is exploring the notion of Twitter as a social computer in two directions -- inside and outside a company. I have been talking about this concept a lot -- how an increasing percentage of my daily interaction is outside of IBM, and how I believe that this helps me make better decisions and be more responsive inside of IBM. Sam's theory is that Twitter can break down the walls even further:
While even the esteemed Twitterari enjoy efficient, rich communication through their social network, those same people often turn around and are stuck sending old-fart email around their company. Their social network consists of the few people they know on their email mailing list. There's no internal Twitter-like communication. But, hypothetically, your company could be a kick-butt social computer, too. You're all on the same basic mission and actually a social network by definition.The discussion on his blog has spun off into the notion of whether there should or should not be an "enterprise Twitter", or other ideas like channels and filters. I personally would love to see two parallel streams -- IBMers and external -- in terms of visualization, even if the tweets themselves still end up in both places. The other thing I'd like to watch for is how to better monitor who follows me -- it's a good reminder that the whole stream is public, and that any one 140 character string can certainly be taken out of context.
Link: Sam Lawrence: Twitter: A two-way social computer? >
Post a Comment
- 2
Pedro Quaresma http://playroom3.wordpress.com | 4/10/2008 11:16:08 AM
Interesting, I admit I hadn't heard of Jive Software before, and now it's the 2nd time today. Time to learn more.
- 3
Peyton McManus http://www.instant-tech.com | 4/10/2008 12:17:46 PM
Hey Ed,
I've been thinking of twitter as a cross between a mini blogger and a presence platform. We (Instant) are also thinking about what an enterprise 'twitter like' application, mounted on an enterprise presence platform, might look like.
I also had a blog entry on a similar topic. { Link }
It's also possible that you may want some of those internal twitter entries to be composed automatically, based on what is taking place on your machine.
I also agree that you want more information about who follows you..in both Twitter and within the enterprise IM platforms.
- 4
Keith Brooks http://lotustech.blogspot.com | 4/10/2008 12:32:06 PM
Agree that corp users should be more careful with whatthey say, but then does IBM have a Twitter code of conduct like for blogs or is it all generic?
It's what Sametime could be if there was a persistent chat room available all day.
And now with Advanced server we/you have that and you should be using it as an internal twitter site.
- 5
Scott Gentzen http://www.scottandmargo.net | 4/10/2008 9:20:41 PM
I treat my Twitter stream as a blog basically. Content-wise, I wouldn't post anything on Twitter that I wouldn't be willing to have posted on my blog.
The difference for me is that Twitter is smaller and faster...so what I call the Threshhold of Goodness is lower. I'll twitter something smaller and less interesting than I'd post to the blog.
Which is why I'm twittering more than blogging lately. I try to keep the stuff on the blog more of a short article style where I've been using Twitter to sometimes post what I'm doing but also stuff that I come across that's interesting. It's quicker and easier and mentally less work than starting a writing project for the blog...
- 6
Bill Geimer | 4/10/2008 11:13:15 PM
Yet twitter is also a good indicator of how open or closed a given company is to Web 2.0 and to the concept of "breaking down the walls." Some may never get it, and some are just plain afraid of the concept. I wonder what side of the profitability curve those who do not see the value will be in 1 Yr. - 5 Yrs.?
- 7
Jon Johnston http://www.cornnation.com | 4/14/2008 12:41:36 PM
@6 - probably much higher than those that embrace it. Sooner or later you have to do some real work, you know.
- 8
John Head http://www.johndavidhead.com | 4/15/2008 10:40:59 AM
Still shocks me on some of the stuff I see on Twitter. I think people at IBM and MS really need to consider who is following them and what they are typing :-)
- 9
Dan Zrobok http://blog.danzrobok.com | 4/15/2008 11:40:26 AM
"how an increasing percentage of my daily interaction is outside of IBM, and how I believe that this helps me make better decisions and be more responsive inside of IBM."
This is a fantastic point. I'd love to see IBM start tearing down 'the great firewall' that separates us, the users, from it, the knowledge machine.
- 10
Dan Keldsen http://www.biztechtalk.com/2008/03/market-iq-on-en.html | 4/15/2008 11:49:46 AM
Distraction is a real danger, as twitter can be addictive, it's nice to have a more real-time aspect of sociality coming from the twittering world.
It's already having useful aspects for me in doing local networking, as well as "spot polls" for quick items I'm thinking of, but don't want to launch full research.
Haven't yet embedded a twitter widget in my blog - should I? I agree it's much easier to pop off a tweet than to compose a blog entry, but maybe that's just my mindset.
Direct messaging works for me - it's when we're trying to have conversations in a medium based on 140 characters that I start to get irritated and want to pop out to IM, e-mail, or a phone.
This is something I tried to bring out at Lotusphere by creating the @Lotusphere channel. It rebroadcasts tweets sent to it. You can also get into the billion Twitter tools to visualize who follows you and even who is "up the block" as one of my favorite ones do.
Twubble helps find people quickr. If you start poking around my other blog and bookmarks you will find a slew of tools